Argh. Can someone explain how a VB program could be a Windows Service?

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 07:16:43 -0700

First, thanks for viewing my thread. Let me try to explain what I'm doing, what I've done, and how my brain thinks it works. I do know how to program in VB, that's not the issue. The .exe IS written, it's done and works perfectly as a standalone .exe

What I'm trying exactly to do is this: The program I've written constantly refreshes itself and updates a certain bit of information elsewhere, and I'm trying to not have to run it as a program on my computer, but have it be a service on a server running all the time. It's a good idea in theory, but:

1. I know how to create and start the service. It IS running. I can see it running in Task Manager.
2. I think the problem is that I just don't understand what makes a service a service, and not a "program".

See the thing is, the program I've written runs on autopilot. It requires no user interaction, but it does have a window and a display listbox. I've toyed around with making the form invisible, (me.visible = false) on Form_Load. Also in the control setting itself. That doesn't seem to help. I'm telling the service to interact with the user desktop, but all it's doing is saying a service wants to interact with my desktop, and then still not doing what I'm telling it to do.

Let's try to ask this another way:

Assuming I can make a program a service, what MAKES it a service that requires no user interaction? Even if it's invisible, it's not doing what I want it to do. It's NOT running the code at all. I figured maybe I could create a new VB project and just, you know, have NO forms or something... but then there's no where to program. So that's not it.

Assuming I know how to make the program, and make the service, and activate the service... What in the world am I missing? What vital bit of information is stopping this from running like a program, but as a service??

Thanks, and sorry for the long post!!

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Argh. Can someone explain how a VB program could be a Windows Service?